Forgotten Blessings
I usually enjoy coming home from work early on Friday afternoons, ready to prepare for Sabbath and begin the weekend. But yesterday afternoon, when I got home there was no power, no water (which had been the case since Wednesday, and still is), no gas in the stove, and even no husband!! (He had a lunch meeting and wouldn’t be home until later.)
It’s amazing how much we take things for granted, like having electricity and running water. When the water pump first went out on Wednesday (it has been repaired and replaced several times in the 18 months that we’ve been here), I started hauling about 10 gallons of water home from work each day - not a fun task. Not having running water makes even simple things harder: washing dishes, showering, flushing the toilet, everything. It made me think of the people who who have to haul water everyday, sometimes walking many miles in each direction, in order to just complete these simple daily tasks.
Without gas in the stove, I had no way of cooking anything, as I usually do on Friday afternoons. And without electricity, I wasn’t able to bake either, which I also had planned to do. These are things we expect to be able to do each day with just the crank of a knob. But there are many people who have to spend hours collecting fire wood or animal dung just to get a small fire going in order to cook their meal. An oven is often a luxury that many don’t even have.
And lastly, this home is just a house without my loving husband. People are often what we take most for granted. We begin to expect them to always be there and do the things they always do. For example, Matt always takes out the compost and cleans the cat’s litterbox (because these are things I really don't like doing, yet he does them faithfully without complaint). It would be easy to begin to take these actions for granted because he does them so often, but one of my personal aims is to always say thank you and appreciate even the little, everyday things.
Sometimes it takes a broken pump or power outage to remind us about these forgotten blessings!
It’s amazing how much we take things for granted, like having electricity and running water. When the water pump first went out on Wednesday (it has been repaired and replaced several times in the 18 months that we’ve been here), I started hauling about 10 gallons of water home from work each day - not a fun task. Not having running water makes even simple things harder: washing dishes, showering, flushing the toilet, everything. It made me think of the people who who have to haul water everyday, sometimes walking many miles in each direction, in order to just complete these simple daily tasks.
Without gas in the stove, I had no way of cooking anything, as I usually do on Friday afternoons. And without electricity, I wasn’t able to bake either, which I also had planned to do. These are things we expect to be able to do each day with just the crank of a knob. But there are many people who have to spend hours collecting fire wood or animal dung just to get a small fire going in order to cook their meal. An oven is often a luxury that many don’t even have.
And lastly, this home is just a house without my loving husband. People are often what we take most for granted. We begin to expect them to always be there and do the things they always do. For example, Matt always takes out the compost and cleans the cat’s litterbox (because these are things I really don't like doing, yet he does them faithfully without complaint). It would be easy to begin to take these actions for granted because he does them so often, but one of my personal aims is to always say thank you and appreciate even the little, everyday things.
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